Students often ask if they should restrict their studying to LSAT's that are more recently released. The thinking behind this is that older tests are now obsolete because the test has evolved over time. It's a good question, because if the test format changes, doesn't that make those older tests different and perhaps unusable? Are Older LSATs Obsolete? How different are the newer tests from the older tests? And, are they different enough that … [Read more...]
The Genesis of an LSAT Question, Part II
Continuing on with our discussion from Part I, let’s take the text from the article and turn it into a proto-LSAT Logical Reasoning stimulus: “In the country of Downlandia, over 100,000 people currently live in towns with populations of fewer than 100 residents. This is an increase of over 20,000 people from a decade ago.” With this very rough “stimulus” in hand (which at this point is just a fact set), we can examine the three question types … [Read more...]
The Genesis of an LSAT Question, Part I
The other day I was reading an article about a town in the US with just two residents. In the middle of the article, the following text caught my attention: “The 2010 Census found 13 hamlets with one or two residents, including Lotsee, Okla., Gross, Neb., and Bonanza, Utah. About 119,000 people live in towns with fewer than 100 residents, up from 79,000 a decade earlier. Mr. Cantrell suspects the increase is due largely to towns shrinking below … [Read more...]
Bruce Lee: Enter the LSAT
Most people are familiar with Bruce Lee. He was a martial arts master who became an actor, and when he died young at 32, he was already a superstar and cultural icon. But while most people know him for his martial arts movies, few know that he was also a philosopher and avid student of the mind. After his death, thousands of books were found in his house, with over 1500 marked up with detailed notes and comments. Lee wasn't just a heavy reader, … [Read more...]
Justify and Assumption Questions: Conceptual Similarities and Differences
Many students confuse Justify and Assumption questions. Of course, this is not news to those whose job is to confuse you (hint: they work in Newtown, PA). Consequently, you will often encounter Assumption decoys in Justify questions and vice versa. The trick is to know what you are looking for. And what you are not. Some basic concepts: In Justify questions, you need to identify a statement that is sufficient to prove the conclusion. In other … [Read more...]
Logic Game Types and Frequency of Appearance
Anyone preparing for the LSAT is well aware of the unique difficulty presented by the Logic Games section. What is occasionally overlooked is that certain concepts are far more critical to success than others. That is, specific game types and ideas routinely appear and regularly serve as the basis for the entire section. Other outlier notions are tested so infrequently that they deserve far less attention.Basic Game Types & Frequency of … [Read more...]
What Kind of Vocabulary Should I Expect on the LSAT?
Note: this was originally written for the PowerScore LSAT Reading Comprehension Bible. Students often ask about the vocabulary required to do well on the LSAT. They worry that they might need an especially large vocabulary, or perhaps a working knowledge of legal or logical terms. Let’s take a closer look and find out what you need to know before you take the LSAT. The Good News Most of the words you will see on the LSAT will be of the simple, … [Read more...]
2022 US News Law School Rankings Released!
The 2022 US News Law School Rankings are out! We’ll break down some of the big news from the new rankings in a moment. But first, here’s our standard disclaimer about rankings. Please keep in mind that these rankings are just numbers put through an arbitrary formula that was created by a magazine that makes millions of dollars off of them, so use them at your own risk!The list below is numbered according to the new rankings, and the order … [Read more...]
How Practice LSATs Can Help You Decide to Keep or Cancel Your Score
Taking practice LSATs can do a lot for your test preparation. We talk about how to take PTs to replicate the testing experience as closely as possible here. While taking and analyzing PTs should be an integral part of everyone’s test preparation, we beg the question. Are you using each practice test to their full potential? Meaning, are learning everything you can from each PT? Certainly identifying your strengths and weaknesses and adapting your … [Read more...]
Sunk Costs and the LSAT
I was an Economics major in college, and one of the concepts we discussed was “sunk costs.” In Econ terms, a sunk cost is one that has already been expended and which cannot be recovered. The thinking goes that since you’ve spent it and you aren’t getting it back, you shouldn’t figure those costs into any decisions you make going forward. Examples of sunk costs include things like advertising, the use of consultants, product research, and staff … [Read more...]
Admissions Mental Health: One Student’s Story
In the first part of this blog, PowerScore CEO and LSAT Bibles author Dave Killoran discussed the stresses of applying to law school. The following story is from a student applying to Top 14 law schools this cycle.I write to you on a Wednesday afternoon. In the law school admissions world, Wednesday is typically the day when a few selected applicants are lifted from their depths of despair into the utopia that is being an admitted student. … [Read more...]
Waiting on Law School Decisions? Don’t Forget Your Mental Health
In many sports, the “silly season” is the name given to the offseason, when there are no games but there is a lot of deal-making going on. In law school admissions, I think of the silly season as the period we are in now: from January until roughly May. This is when many law school decisions will be handed down, and negotiations over financial aid take place. But while this is a benign nickname for this period, it is also one of the most … [Read more...]
Retaking the LSAT When You’ve Seen All of the Practice Questions
If you are thinking about retaking the LSAT and you’ve practiced so much that you’ve seen most of the questions (or at least all of the problems of one type, such as Logic Games), what should you do? This can be pretty tricky question, because once you’ve seen a question, you are more likely remember the correct answer, and that takes away the originality, surprise, and challenge of the question. The Teaching Test While I can’t produce a time … [Read more...]
You Can’t Argue with the LSAT
Over on the PowerScore LSAT Discussion Forum I've been talking to several students (both publicly and privately) about their LSAT performance. These are students who are either looking for big score increases (20+ points), or that are a little bit stuck with their scores, and who are looking to get back on the score increase train. In talking to these students, one of the age-old problems for LSAT takers keeps coming up. What's that problem? That … [Read more...]